Digital Creative Thinking

How can we ensure that we are engaging our students with creativity in digital space?

Take a look at these three categories of creative thinking that can help set students up for creative success:

Creative Boosts

  • Fun and engage in thoughtful play

  • One-day, One-off experiences

  • Creative stretch experimentation

Limitation Challenge

  • Exercising imagination

  • Design Thinking

  • 1 Day or Multiple days

Creative Sparks

  • Collecting information

  • 15 mins - 1 day of work

What are Creative Boosts?

They are quick and fun exercises that engage our students in thoughtful play online. These activities are usually done in one-day, one-off learning experiences to incorporate in or out of the classroom. What are the benefits of these Creative Boosts? Many! But, some provide a creative stretch when students work through longer and bigger work. Also, you may revisit the “Creativity in Classroom” tab for a refreshment!

Some ideas for Creative Boosts:

  1. Scavenger Hunts

  2. 1000 Sketchbook Prompts

  3. 300 Creative Writing Prompts


Important! Let’s keep these tips in our minds when we are using Creative Boosts in our online teaching practices:

  1. Maintain your 'helicopter view' outcomes. For instance, if some of your students could not draw a house, then it is actually okay for them to draw the very basic version of a house. Remember, keep it simple and let them draw using their own creativity and existing skills—no rigid expectations or standardization here. The point of these creative boosts is more about play than technical skills.

  2. Set up a clear expectation of what this all looks like. If you want your students to draw more than one drawing, then let them know in advance. This is really a must, as clarity in learning (whatever the contexts are, is critical).

  3. Give students more time to prepare all the materials needed. When we are in the physical classroom, everything needed for students to do an experiment has been prepared. However, when it comes to a digital setting, you may allow some additional time for students to discover the materials at home.

What is Limitation Challenge?

Design thinking challenges that constrain the imagination. As educators, we need to carefully consider how our students could combine and transform to push limits and boundaries. Especially when the materials for a project our students will make are unavailable, students might experience "limitations" in their imagination. Therefore, providing dedicated time for students to do self-or-group brainstorming is really a good idea. This activity could be labelled "Limitation Challenge," and it could be completed in one or more days.

Here are some tips for doing the Limitation Challenge:

    1. Encourage students to think about real situations without constraint. For example, ask your students to think about all the available materials that they have in their homes.

    2. Give students a choice of materials to create maquettes or develop prototypes. When teaching online, we may not know what our students might have at their disposal. If we give instructions for them to create a project using cardboard, we may allow students to identify and use their material of choice (other than the cardboard that is available in their homes).

What are Creative Sparks?

Creative Sparks are ‘warm-up’ activities that can be used to stimulate your students' creativity before and during the process of learning. These are short exercises, from fifteen minutes to one day. It allows students to think independently, gather information and develop their existing ideas while doing these activities in your online class.

Some tips for your creative sparks:

  1. Give your students flexibility in time. It is critical to allow students to decide how much time they need for Creative Sparks. Some students might need an hour, three hours, or a whole day to think and refine their ideas. If you have a 1-day duration length for Creative Sparks, let your students pick their needed time.

  2. Give your student a choice of documentation. Encourage your students to think for themselves and consider ways to track the development of their ideas. Students can use mediums like Google docs, Google slides, or Google Jambord.